BusyMap, an Efficient Data Structure to Observe Interconnect Contention in SystemC TLM-2.0

For designing embedded computer architectures that meet desired performance constraints at low cost, fast and accurate simulation models are needed early in the design flow. To identify and avoid bottlenecks early at the system level, observing the contention of shared resources is critical. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a novel data structure called BusyMap that accurately reflects contention at system busses or similar inter-connect components. BusyMap is an efficient data structure that allows the system designer to accurately model and easily observe contention in IEEE loosely-timed TLM-2.0. In contrast to prior state-of-the-art, our model fully supports temporal decoupling and multiple levels of interconnect. Our experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of BusyMap with results showing high accuracy at high -speed System C simulation.